Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 292: Dermot O'Leary

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

World’s Greatest Hugger, Dermot O'Leary, joins us in the Dream Restaurant this week and reveals Nicole Scherzinger after-dinner tipple. Dermot O'Leary hosts ‘Silence is Golden’ which starts Monday 5th May on U&Dave and airs weekly. All episodes are available to stream free on U from Monday 5th May. Follow Dermot on Instagram @dermotoleary Off Menu is a comedy podcast hosted by Ed Gamble and James Acaster.Produced, recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Video production by Megan McCarthy for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design).Follow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, taking the bagel of conversation, popping it in the toaster of humour, spreading on the cream cheese of conversation and adding the smoked salmon of friendship, James. That is A Gamble, my name is James Aessler. Together we own a dream restaurant and every single week we're inviting a guest and asking them if they'd ever start a main course dessert, side dish and drink. Not in that order. And this week the guest is Dermot O'Leary. Why are you laughing so much, Benito? Benito says he's laughing because he can hear Ed breathing directly into the mic through his nose. That's

funny to him now. That's what it's come to on this podcast is that that's the only thing that will make Benito laugh is Ed breathing through his nose into the mic. It is making him laugh every time I do it. Yeah, you're doing it now. I haven't got headphones on, so I can't appreciate it until this goes out. I'll have to listen to it. No, that one was too much. She didn't like that one. Yeah, do my Larry legend in the game Hosted so many shows so many iconic shows always like Everyone's favorite. Don't everyone's just give give him a big old cuddle. Don't they? Yes I mean, I've met them a couple of times such a great energy such a nice man. man. I believe he's a listener to the podcast.

I think he's excited to come on. So look, it's going to be great. And he's got a new series, Son This Is Golden, on You and Dave, weekly on Mondays, that's coming out. We'll ask him about that. All episodes are now available to stream free on You. Yes, absolutely. But even though Dermot is a lovely man and excited to come on the podcast, if he puts a secret ingredient on his menu that we've Pre-established he will be booted off the pod. Yes. Sorry Dermot and this week the secret ingredient is Cheerios, do you want to talk us through your thought process with that one James?

Cheerios, O'Leary cheerio leary cheerio leary's especially if he calls him cheerio leary's He's out which is a shame because I'd love it if he did that Yeah, I would love it if he did that and I like Cheerios Yeah, so, you know, but they go fingers crossed that you won't do that I will try and get the own brand Cheerios from shops rather than give money to Nestle Right. Okay. Are they Nestle? Are they? Yeah, just so people know. Yeah. Yeah, but then sometimes they same? Sometimes I'll admit, they do taste the same actually, but sometimes I'll admit I've just got such a hangering for the Cheerios and I go there and there's no own brand stuff and I just, I buckle.

Hey, no one's perfect. I'm not going to make out like I'm a saint here. This is the off menu menu of Dermatoliri. Oh, cheerilyri. Cheerilyri. Dermot O'Leary! Oh, cheery leery! Cheery, oh leery! Dermot O'Leary Welcome, Dermot, to the Dream Restaurant! Oh, hi lads. Psh!

Welcome, Dermot O'Leary, to the Dream Restaurant! Missed me for some time! You're a lot quieter outside. Yeah! This is a thing, I've got to build you up to it. You really don't. It's nice to be here. Yeah, well, he did go very big there.

Here's the thing, now I'm quite self-conscious because I know there's been a preamble because you two do a preamble. Sure, we do a preamble. Have you done a preamble yet? Yes. When did you do the preamble? We've been here all day, Dad. Why?

We get in early. Am I here in the preamble? No, absolutely not. Oh, man. It's got the secret ingredient in it. So the preamble is the secret sauce? Yeah, that's included in there. What are you worried about with the preamble? Is it the secret ingredient or just you're curious about the preamble?

Yeah. I think we've been slugging you off. Present a comedian dynamic is always quite strange. Yeah? Yeah, because you like think we're like the hospital porters and you're like the heart surgeons. You sort of, you get this whole kind of like, oh, you're all I do is walk and talk and say things.

And we're like, yeah, you just come out with some funny things to say, and you say it again and again and again on tour, and then you go home and none of you are really happy. And then you're like, come and try and do two and a half hours of live telly. Yes. Wow, you must be terrified of Joel Domet though.

He's coming for you. The double threat. He's coming for you. Yeah. He's come. I think he's come. We've had a lot of presenters on this show. We respect the art of presenting. I'm not scared of the preamble. I'm just curious.

I've tried some presenting in the past. It's very difficult. Did you enjoy it? Yeah. But it's difficult. It is difficult. It depends what you do. Having an earpiece. Having an ear it? Yeah, but it's difficult. It is difficult. Depends what you do, I think. Having an earpiece.

Having an earpiece is it? Yeah. But it's interesting. Jimmy Carr told me the other day that your body goes through the same process every time you get stressed about something. So even though you think you've conquered that stress, your body's still going through the same process. And I remember when I first started T4, I used to literally, I'd be in the toilet throwing up before the show started because the idea of live television without an autocue, without like, you know,

really without sort of you sort of learn the script, but you add living under script. So there's a lot that could go wrong. And it was on for hours. Like, you know, you link, some of the links were easy. They were like, here's Hollyoaks. But some of them were like, right, now you've got to interview the rock for like three minutes and then cross them out to some sort of like game. But it's nuts, right? In terms of what your body is, that history, what your body

gets used to and what your mind, you know, how you play tricks. I think your job is interesting because obviously people are going to see you when they go and see you, but at the same time you're always playing the away game. So wherever you go, there's a new crowd and new set of people who want to see you, but you've still got to win them over. Yeah, yeah, they're like, you've come into our place. Yeah. And no matter how much they like the comedian,

they're still worried that the comedian is going to be rubbish. Whereas I think with presenters, I always feel like I'm in good hands. It's funny, around your corporate work. This presenter is going to be rubbish. Around your corporate work, it's really interesting because you come out and you sort of like, you know, I do a bit of writing and we've got a writer and we work together and you know, not comedian, but you want to make it funny and you want to make it laugh and you want to, and sometimes you can come out and go, it would be half decent scripts and you come out, if the audience aren't up for it, the audience

aren't up for it. It's the same in comedy. Like, presumably when people are coming to watch comedy, they're up for it. You'd hope so. You'd hope so, but you know, sometimes they might walk into the venue and be like, hmm, it's something about the venue that's makes them feel a bit subdued. And they sit down, they might be enjoying it, but not really laughing much because they feel like quite tired in their big comfy seats or the very dull venue and they're just like sitting there. It's a very fragile art form. If there's a light that's wrong, it could skew the whole gig. Does it change at all on what day it is? So if you know you're hitting a Thursday, then you know you're going to have a great

day on the Thursday. I don't think it does. I think we always say it does, but you could have a bad gig on any day of the week and there'll be someone on the venue staff who'll say to you, Friday, isn't it? Oh, it's Tuesday. That's what it is. It's always, no matter to you, Friday, isn't it? That's Tuesday. That's what it is. It's always, no matter what day it is, that's why the gig went bad. And I'm cursed at the Roundhouse, which is, yeah, I've never had a good night go well

at the Roundhouse when I've presented there. It's just every time I've been at the Roundhouse, I've died in my arse. Now, admittedly, I've done some quite, like the London Football Awards, which lovely Bob Wilson, who's A, is a hero of mine at Arsenal, also just the loveliest man in the world. And he's got the gorgeous puppy dog eyes. And he asked me to host the London Football Awards. I said, for you, of course I will. And as soon as I walked out, I was like, oh man, this is a big mistake. Was it a rowdy gig? Rowdy, but also disinterested, which is kind of a worse domination, you know?

And I've also done disinterested and quiet at the Roundhouse. It's hard to know which one of the worst out of those two. I think you can get it in your head sometimes in the venues. Have you got a venue that you've... I've never had a storm at the Roundhouse. And, you know, the times I've played there has been promoted by the man on my left. So, like, you know, maybe it's his fault. Sometimes you just, you feel it though, you know.

Sometimes it's gone pretty well. But then that's in your head a lot of the time, right? It's a great night. Was it? Yeah. You had a great time tonight. But is there, like, when you look down at your tour date, sometimes you're like, oh, God, not Yarmouth again.

Oh, man, I died in Yarmouth so many times. I'll be honest, a lot of the time, if I have a really bad gig somewhere on tour, I'll immediately text the person who's in charge of booking the tour and saying, remind me when we're booking the next tour, I'm not coming back. Not going back. Yeah, yeah. Quiet audiences can be tricky and Silas's Golden has come into you and Dave's. Oh, hello, hello. Just pick it. Pick that one out.

How's your left foot? That was lovely. How's that for presenting? It's pretty good. Get the guy on T4. You get in town. We'll call Joel Dumb it. Joel, sorry.

Do you know, it's a lovely show. I sort of got pitched it by Richard Bacon, which is an experience. And, oh, Rich is amazing. Damn it. You've got which is an experience. And our Rich is amazing. He's like, damn it, you're going to love this show. And, and... Yeah, I'll tell you what, 25 years ago, I never thought we'd be sat around talking about Richard Bacon being the format king. Yeah. He really is. He's so good with the blank sheet of paper. And there's a few people that

worked on the show. There's a guy called Mark Sidoway. He was my exec on the X Factor for years. And Mark's incredible. I mean, bear in mind, Mark worked for Simon Cowell for like 12 years and then did stuff with the Royal Family. So he's been in the court of, you know, the madness for, you know, wherever he's gone. And now he's working for Richard, which is a version of that as well. But Richard's so brilliant with the blank sheet of paper. So the idea is, come out, I think there's 70 people in the audience and we shot it last year and I just come out

and say, listen, congratulations, you've all won 250,000 pounds. Big cheers. Split between you. All you have to do is not utter a sound for the next hour when the shush button goes on, when the shush light goes on in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Get it all out of your system. Everyone makes noise and we stop. And then it's a combination of comedians, practical jokes, bribes, getting like old

grannies from Poland on, you know, that kind of, it's a little bit of everything to try and, our job is then to try and get that money off them. So it's like a sort of mad variety show. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Because everyone reacts to different things. Completely.

And some stuff just you think is really funny and really good and people are just like stony faced. It's gutted. And some great moments. Also, what we sort of didn't really, because it's not a reality show or anything, but we've mic'd them up and they've all got cameras on them. And what we underestimated was how some people are just going, well, if we do well here, we can all make a few grand each.

Let's work as a team. And some people are just like, ah ah. So if I just come on and go, who wants to do 200 quid for Lincoln to break? There's one guy just kept going, yeah. And you can see everyone around him getting more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more

and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and I can't believe it. And he's just like, I don't give a shit. I've got John DeGriff in my pocket. Great. Yeah. So it was a lot of fun to do. It was a lot of fun to work around comedians as well.

So Catherine Ryan's involved. She's heading up the team of comedians. Yeah. Catherine's just brilliant. One of the best. Yeah. I mean, these are comedians who are putting themselves out there. We've got Sean Walsh, we've got Fadil Ghori, and we've got Ruben Kaye, who I did.

You know Ruben? Ruben's marvelous isn't he? He was just, and actually it's really interesting to watch the comedians, because they come out and they've got their five or ten minutes that they know that they can rely on, and you know, and then it's, I mean it's hard enough to present the show, you're presenting to silence for, it's about sort of two hour record, but for comedians this must be so difficult because they're getting nothing. I know sort of vaguely where I'm going,

at least I've got that. Whereas comedians, it's interesting to see some of them will come and just sort of have to change on, like turn on the sixpence. And you know, you realize that some of them are so good at that kind of level of, shit, that's not working, okay, or hang on a second, that guy looks a bit odd,

I can turn around, you know, I can kind of go with him. Or Ruben was brilliant for that. And he glad hill was brilliant. So many is it's really interesting. I can't going out in front of an audience who are financially financially have to be silent. I would look because obviously you know that and doing stuff and they're not reacting. There's still a chemical response in your body that would just be like, this is the worst day of my life. Oh, I don't know. I did it as a thing for, actually it was, I think it was Dave again,

but it was for online. And we had to give these like Ted talks kind of thing, like these comedic Ted talks that they've written to an audience who were told to be silent. And I find it very comforting knowing before I went on, well, they are going to be silent and they have to be. But that's different because you're not trying to make them laugh. You know it's- You're always trying to make someone laugh if that's what your job is, aren't you? No way.

Well, we always start with still sparkling water on the dream menu, Dermot. Do you have a preference? Of course. If we're eating, it's got be Sparkling Water. Okay. Okay We are we're definitely eating one of you doesn't like Sparkling. I don't like it really I Notice on this podcast. I changed my opinion on Sparkling Water weekly and it's basically whatever the guest says So, I don't know I was thinking about this on the way in I was thinking what would I because I always go Sparkling and I Don't quite know why.

And I think, obviously, it's more fun. But I only tend to have sparkling water when I'm eating. Right. And also I'm a child of the 80s. So when the 80s came along, Perrier came along. Perrier was the first kind of like, not only is it not just out of a tap, but you can buy it in a bowl. It's a green bowl, it's French.

And every now and again, we'll add like a hint of lime or a hint of lemon. And it became sort of in our house, like my dad never drunk, and my mom found wine in the 80s and has never looked back. And so, there wasn't that, there wasn't an awful lot of fun stuff to drink. We weren't really allowed fizzy drinks. And we also did, we did a thing. I don't know why we did this, but my mom insisted we did a monthly shop. But back in the day, a monthly shop was you went to the shops after school with your mom,

Tesco's or Sainsbury's, and you stocked up for a month. So I think largely because she didn't really enjoy food shopping. So me and my sister would be bribed to go around and carry these trolleys around. And then at the time you had to pay by check. So then my poor mom was like, had to write this check. And then you can imagine how unpopular that would be because you were just like holding up people. Yeah, huge kids.

Yeah, and then you have to get the manager to come and triple sign the check. And all because my mom just didn't want to go shopping every week. So the trade-off was we were allowed one thing each and I always used to go for Coco Pops or Corn Flakes squashed down into a cake that's covered in chocolate. You know? Like a flat one. And it could last. But that was my first, us when we started buying stuff, that was my first kind of route into Sparkling

Waters. So it was Perrier. Also, Perrier was on that. I almost thought that you were going to say in that story that when you were allowed one thing, you as a child chose Perrier Water. I was halfway through the thinking. But chocolate covered cereal was on that. Yeah. But so Perrier Water was like the one thing we bought. And then it was kind of an indulgence, I suppose. And also Miami Vice was on at the time.

And I just remember, I remember once, it was probably a young sexual awakening, some girlfriend of Don Johnson's was just sunbathing on a boat. And then she opened a bottle of Perry and just poured it all over herself. And I was like 11 going, oh my God, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. So, yeah. I want to be the water.

Right. And then our first holiday away was France. So sort of Irish family. So every holiday was back to Ireland. And then we started camping a little bit in the UK. But the first sort of glamour holiday was camping in France. And then you go to France and obviously like if you're into food, even doesn't matter how old you are, it's the fries, it's the crepes, it's the pan of chocolate in the morning, it's all that great stuff. And Perrier was part of that. It's been a much comprehensive answer.

So it's proper taking you back to the big shop, to the trips to France. It feels like an indulgence. Got to be Perrier. And I've always said it. I agree with that. And I love sparkling water. I knew you with that and I love Sparkling Water. I knew you would! Pop-Dub's all bread! Pop-Dub's all bread, damn it, I'm living! Pop-Dub's all bread!

This is the only problem I have with this podcast. I love your podcast. This is the fundamental flaw in the format. Okay. Is... Get bacon on the phone. It's like asking me, do you want an apple or an avocado and asking me to come up with the right... Like, they're so contextual, aren't they? Yes.

So let me throw it back at you guys. Where did Pappadoms or bread come from? Did you not go- James did it on the first episode, and it was too late. So did bread or naan or like- It was me, I think when we started the podcast, I was going through a phase of every time

I was in an Indian restaurant, and they brought up the Pappadoms, thinking I love Pappadoms so much. Why is it we only have them in Indian restaurants? I wish I was, I tell you what I'd love to have it in this other thing and then like so when we were coming up with this format I was like this is important to me right now. At the time it was important to me that I made the guests consider what if you can have papadums at the beginning of any meal. When we were coming up with format, we did the first episode and he shouted poppadoms

or bread. And that was it. He just chucked it out there. He just spit balled him. Yeah. And then it went to bacon. Yeah. You should work with bacon.

You should work with bacon. I'd love to work with bacon. Yeah. I'd love to say, I've only met bacon once and it was the same time I had my first ever Bloody Mary. I was- Now we're talking. Bacon does go well with Bloody Mary sometimes. A bit... That would talk to him.

Bacon does go well with Bloody Mary sometimes. A bit of a coutrement. Yeah, I was supporting Milton Jones on tour in 2011. We went into a bar after the final tour date. He hadn't been at the show, but Bacon was just there randomly. Happy to see Milton sat down with us. I'd ordered a Bloody Mary, took a sip. I love them now, but I took a sip, absolutely hated it. Had to sit there drinking this cold soup while listening to Bacon tell Milton about one-liners and break down one-liner comedy to Milton Jones. But I'm delighted to sit down with him now.

Well, here's a separate question. I'm totally sold on Puppet Arms of Bread. You know when someone said it's always an acquired taste, like bloody Mary, right? You didn't like it at the time. What's the cutoff for indulging in that? Because there is a point where you go, actually I just don't like it. So if I do it something enough, then I'll start to like it.

But like food is the only kind of vessel or medium we have where that's okay, isn't it? Other than that. What where someone will go, yeah, try it. Just count how you're doing it. People do it with people. People are like, it's all right once you get to know me. You've got a cat and you're like, I don't know if I want to put the hours in with this guy. It's the worst part. So, olives are that guy. And I love olive oil and I love everything Italian. I'm a huge fan of Italy. But I can't be doing with eating olives.

You guys? I love olives, but I always respect people tapping out and going, why am I putting the... But I think that's fine. Olives are the thing where you're like, oh, kids hate them. And then a lot of the time they'll grow up and they'll love olives. I think, you know, when you get older, if you eat something you don't like it, there's no time to start trying to crack on with that thing. Just eat the stuff you like.

Yeah. God's sake. It's like TV shows as well. If I don't like the first two episodes of something, I'm not cracking on. Oh, really? Yeah. There's a lot of stuff to watch, isn't there, I guess. But I don't know, I feel guilty if I kind of give up after two episodes.

What me and my wife tended to do recently is we did a whole thing and then we don't watch the last episode. I was just in the car, then it just struck me as well. It wasn't like it's not a conscious thing. I was like, we still haven't finished something or another. And I was like, we've devoted a lot of time to that. Is it because you don't want it to end? No, it's only if it peters out.

Yeah, yeah. Here's the thing as well. I recently watched a show on Netflix that didn't do a... We were like really excited about the second series. Second series started, didn't do a recap of the first series. Yeah, fuck that. And we were like, oh, we're totally lost now because they're picking up a story,

but we haven't seen this for 18 months. I'm like that with each new series this morning. Right. It's 52. I'm like, do a recap for Christ's sake, I don't know what's happening in this. I can't keep up with all these characters. Tell me about yesterday morning. Yeah.

Well, I can sum it up for you. Some cookery. Yeah. Some lols. Yeah. Semi-hard news at the start. Yeah. Phone in the summer description.

Great. And then a demo. I love it. That's all you need to know. Oh, okay. So I go bread, but with a caveat that I do adore a poppadom. And I've started to buy poppadoms for the house. For that very reason. Huge fan. Don't like to mess around with a poppadom.

I like it old school. But largely just because, whether it's soda bread, which I love, because the whole Irish thing, good soda bread is good. It should be, the listeners should know we're speaking to you on St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, we are. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Thank you, lads. And I love, we call it dirty white bread, but just regular white bread.

I don't like messing around too much with it. I still have a love-hate relationship with sourdough. Like I'm amazed and my mates have like things in the fridge and I'm like, what? I don't understand. Like you add, and then you add to it and it's just been there forever. I don't get it. But I love a good old fashioned, there's a, I do Glastonbury every year for the radio too, right? And then there's a place on the court, we stay in Wells. And if you guys have ever been to Wells, lovely little.

Ben's from there pretty much. You're not. Oh, lovely Ben. We stay in a hotel, it's called The Swan I think. And then on the corner, there's a little bakery. I'll stay at The Swan. That does doorstep white bread, sausage sandwiches, bacon sandwiches, which are just manna from heaven. And it's kind of thick cut white bread, like a farmhouse loaf or something, or a split

tin or something. And then it's just like, just buttered. Straightforward. good sausage. Yeah. Great. Have you been to the Flap Jackery in Wales? Yeah, it's amazing. Right next to it. Yeah.

I always get my presents like for thanks for looking after our kid. Sorry about, sorry, a bit of a mess after the weekend. Presents from the Flap Jackery. Love the Flap Jackery. Yeah, it's good stuff. They're very proud of it though. There's good butchers in Wales as well. Are you making notes about Flap Jackerys?

Yeah, he puts the right everything down and put it on the website of all the recommendations that he has to do. Yeah, it's good stuff. They're very proud of it. There's good butchers in Wales as well. Are you making notes about flapjackeries? Yeah, he puts everything down and put it on the website of all the recommendations. All right, you have to clear the flapjackery. No, he'll just put it on the little... There's a page on the website that is all the eateries that we mentioned. I didn't know... Do you have to call them and go, listen guys? No, no, no. Are you familiar with the podcast? Also, Ben runs a comedy festival in Wales, so now we've mentioned the Flap Jackery,

there might be a few freebies flying your way. There's the great butchers around the corner, mention them, they're lovely. Down the road, don't know the name of them. Cathedral shout out the cathedral. Oh yeah, lovely. Yeah, they like to think they're a city. It's funny that they think they're a city, isn't it? Really funny that they all go on about, well, this is the city, welcome to the city of Wales.

Really? As I was walking down the street and an old lady I didn't know said hello to me. That's not a city. That happens in a city. Someone's getting beaten up. You don't say hello to strangers. A couple of years ago, whenever it was,

I did the royal wedding. I got asked to do the royal wedding for the BBC, which was quite exciting. So I went down to Windsor where it was, I did the, did the Royal Wedding. I got asked to do the Royal Wedding for the BBC, which was quite exciting. So I did, I went down to Windsor where it was happening and we went down the night before and it's me, Kirsty Young and, and there's quite a few sort of little reporters and stuff like that, you know, so it was a really big deal. Like, you know, you get given this massive big like folders, like being doing A-levels again, you know, it's proper. So I took a month to digest the whole thing. Anyway, we're coming up, doing rehears doing A-levels again, you know, it's proper. So it took a month to digest the whole thing.

And anyway, we were coming up, doing rehearsals, we finished rehearsals, we were coming across the road and this is in Windsor and I walked past this old lady and she was talking to someone she knew and she went, the thing is, I really feel it's going to put Windsor on the map. See the castle? Isn't it their surname? Yeah. Your dream starter. Let's get into your menu properly.

Lads, lads, lads. How are you with fish? What's the situation? I don't know who likes fish and who doesn't like fish. We're going to be pretty fish heavy today. Great, nice. Good to hear. With a few caveats. Caveats, pronounced caveats. Yes, come on. Come on.

It's good humor. So, have you guys ever gigged in Norway? Yeah, I have not. I have been in Oslo. Like it? Yeah, I did like it. I actually, I mean, now we're talking about the royal family. I gigged in Oslo half an hour after the Queen died.

So I was... The British Queen. Yeah, so our Queen. I was in the dressing room, the audience were filing in, then I got the text and obviously all my friends who were doing shows back home, their gigs all got cancelled. And I'm there going, I've still got to go on. And also I've got to go on, I was doing a show at the time where the audience were allowed to do whatever they wanted, That was part of the show.

They were allowed to heckle, do whatever they want. And so you walk on stage and they all knew my beloved queen had passed. So as soon as I walked on stage, they're just screaming at me, just dissing me for not having a queen anymore. And that was- The regions are quite reserved. Yeah, I thought that was the vibe in Scandinavia, that they'd be quite reserved. But then when the rules are, you can do what you want.

They're like, oh, we should give him what he wants. He wants us to do this. Oh yeah. They were like, we're being good, a good audience. Yes. By bringing up that his queen is no longer around. Did you eat while you were there? Yeah.

Do you remember like, did you have a nice dinner? I did. I can't remember what I had because I only had for one day for that. So I've always loved seafood, I've always loved fish. But my wife is Norwegian. And when we started dating, we went out to see her family. And now we go like a couple of times a year. But we got there and she said, the one thing you have to have while you're here in Norwegian prawns from the fjord. And actually sometimes they get them from like the West coast up to Greenland and all of that. And now I can't have another prawn. So if someone says to me, oh, do you want a tiger prawn?

I'm like, ah, no, no, no. Or if we're traveling or something, like prawns anywhere else, I can't be doing with them. So the Norwegian prawns are just these, it's so simple, but you basically, so I'd have a pint or half a pint of those. And with some, the Norwegians like quite dense rye bread, which I can't be doing with. So I would normally go with some lovely white bread, mayonnaise, a bit of lemon squeezed

on top. And that's maybe a little salad, a side salad, but that's all you need as a starter. And they largely are there, they don't catch them in the fjord so much anymore, but they still do them. So there's a little guy that comes in, you buy them off him, we bought them off in the kind of quayside, or you can get them from sort of further afield. The fjord prawns are kind of a little smaller and then the ones on the west coast are bigger, but they are, they're just icy cold, juicy with a, the Norwegians adore beer. Beer and coffee are like the two drinks. They've also got

a very strange thing. They've got a wine monopoly in Norway. So this is the most brilliantly Norwegian thing in that the government own all the basically off licenses. You can get beer in supermarkets. I'm not sure about spirits. I think you can get spirits in supermarkets. But you get beer in supermarkets. But if you want wine, you go into a separate shop that's state owned, I believe.

But because they've got this massive sovereign wealth fund and they didn't just throw it away like we did. They can just basically afford to buy really good wine. So they buy, so the state, I think, buys the wine. And so all my sort of brother-in-laws and stuff, they've got really high-end tastes when it comes to, so whenever they come visit us, I'm like, drinking at our house and home and like all the good stuff. I'm like, no, no, no, you knock yourself out.

But so they've got basically some wine advisors on tap. So they're really good on wine and it's kind of quite, I know. So it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but the prawns are just next level. Pine of prawns, nothing attracts me quicker on a menu than a pint of prawns. Oh yeah?

I didn't know that about you. I'm still learning about them. I'm just copying my wife to be honest, because Charlie like loves prawns. So, and at her birthday, I'll normally find somewhere to take her that does a pint of prawns. But I do look at a pint of prawns sometimes. I get a bit like a really old man in a pub and go, that's not a pint. There's a head sticking up there.

That shouldn't count as part of the pint. Show them, peel them, and then film me a pint. There was an old place down in Old Gate, I think, that we used to go to quite often called Tubby Isaacs. I don't think it's there anymore, but Tubby Isaacs. If Tubby Isaacs was there, I'd know if I didn't. Tubby Isaacs still there? Are you looking out now?

Someone told me it'd come back, but no, it's gone. There's one in Clapton, Benito says. That might be the same one. Tubby might have moved out to Clapton. A lot of people have moved out. It was 24 hours and you can go and get whelks there and little cockles and stuff like that. It was amazing. So if you're sort of that way in town and you've had a few drinks and stuff, we'd always go via there and get

like, and also some couple of my friends at proper East End, Cockney Down and Cockney Dom. So, and they were literally sitting in their pants and happily eating partner welks or just in vinegar happily watching the football. Did you come up with the name Cockney Dan and Cockney Dom or do they call themselves Cockney Dan? I know we came up with it. How did you meet Cockney Dan and Cockney Dom? Cockney Dom is Cockney Dan's brother and I met Cockney Dan through mates, really just

sort of TV mates and we started. And then we just sort of, just a nice bunch of friends we've had for, we do a supper club every three months. Someone has to pick where we eat. Yeah. Should be seasonal. Uh-huh. It's got an ironic title.

We're called Posh Boys Supper Club because none of us are posh. Uh-huh. And everyone has to wear a suit, but not in a kind of like, for far, for far way. We've got quite a loose dress code now. And then, and we've been doing it for 20 years now and it's so nice. Oh great. I've got a supper club as well. It's nice. Yeah. We're called working class lads. Oh, lovely. Oh, we should meet up sometime. Um, he goes to McDonald's. But we do sometimes the worst nights are when you get home hungry, you know? And so whenever I do it, I just

try and pick somewhere really, I know we're gonna get a good meal. Where was the last place you went for the supper club? The last place we went for the supper club was Christmas. And it was amazing. It was, I forget the name of the restaurant, it was in Clapham and they did goose. And the whole thing was our mate just went like, if anyone's not up for it,

he was over from the States and he organized it. He said, if anyone's not up for goose, let me know. And so we had Christmas dinner with a goose. It was delicious. That was great. Juicy, juicy, juicy? Yeah, lovely. Goosey, goosey, loosey. I went to, I started, one of the reasons why I love food so much, I mean, my mom, on her own admission doesn't enjoy cooking. She's not a great cook. But my mom went back to work when I was like 14 or something. And so me and my sister sort of started cooking. She taught us how to cook.

And it was one thing I really liked at school. And then I generally thought it was going to be my route in, my sort of route in life, because I didn't really, I failed all my GCSEs bar two first time around, because I just don't concentrate. And then my dad said, look, let's retake them, but if you don't get them, that's cool.

But let's have a think about what you want to do. And I had done work experience in a restaurant. Fell in love with it. Because it's the same thing, it's show business. Like working in a restaurant is basically the same as live television. Like whether you're in the kitchen or whether you're in front of the house, you're just, you're making sure that people have a great night and you only get one chance to do it. And I adored it. I loved every second of it. And I thought, well, I'm going to be a chef. And then weirdly I sort of bucked up my ideas, passed my GCSEs and then I did my A-levels and I found I sort of had a sweet spot at history and politics.

So I studied politics and then I got, that was the only subject I did really well at. And then that kind of sort of changed my trajectory. But then when I was at university, I just, I worked all my way through university by either being a mom or a way tour and stuff. And I love, absolutely love the industry. And so it was always kind of second nature to me. I've lost my train of thought. Where are we now?

Are we prawns? Well, we can move on to the main course. No, no, no, not at all. What were you talking about? I don't want to get on your head. I don't want to get on your head. I'm having a great time. What were we talking about two seconds before that?

We were on prawns. We were at supper club. That's it. Goose. That's it. Thank you. God bless the goose. So I get to TV, get a job as a runner for a documentary company called Barrowclough Cary. And I've got no real aspiration. I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid. It wasn't good enough. Knew I wasn't good enough straight. Largely during my GCSE practical.

You know, sometimes when I say, you should never listen to the little voices in your head. Sometimes you should. And I did. And then, so I didn't sort of, I sort of wanted to be on telly without, well, be a presenter, but I wanted to properly learn it as a craft, you know, but I didn't, there wasn't like, there was no ins, there wasn't like, so I just thought, well, I want to work in the industry. I want to be a producer. I want to learn how to work behind the scenes. So finished university, went away, it was study politics and media studies, went away to travel for a little bit, came back, wrote loads of letters,

got loads of like 250 rejection, in fact, we're just clearing our house out at the moment. I found them the other day. Not in a kind of like, fuck you man, I don't know why I kept them. And so I was just sort of transferring from one tree box to another. And then I got three, it's like mid 90s, I got three kind of replies that were half decent. One kind of work experience, one maybe, and one come up for a chat. So I get this, I get this runner's job. And then I heard about screen tests that was going across town. I didn't get, no, I did get, sorry, I got the screen test. But so, and I ended up doing a pilot for Channel 4. So I had, I had the show reel basically. And it was like, it was supposed to replace the word or something.

And it didn't, it was like a kind of late night Channel 4 show. But I got callback after callback after callback. And like, and I'm a runner at the time. No Earth right to get this job. I get this job. I go and do it. And it gives me a show reel and it got me an agent. Same agent I've got now.

So I had the sort of foot on the ladder. And then you're sort of chucked out into my world. And so I was, I had a period where I was going for research jobs and going for presenting jobs at the same company. So I'd go in and they'd go, you're not in two weeks ago doing a screen test. I'm like, yeah, but you know, I'm also researching. You're not going to get either.

Anyway, one of the jobs I got was working on like lunch, melon soup. And that's where I just fell in love with food because every day you get these great chefs coming in cooking for you. I remember having goose for the first time, but they all said I was sort of audience researcher. So this is sort of emails in its infancy. So we're actually just sending out signed pictures or sending out recipe cards or sending out. So I was in charge of all of that, getting the audience in, getting the best

audience members on television and all that sort of stuff. So every single day we were fed by these great home ex and these great chefs that came in. So I just, I just had this great food every day. And that's where I fell in love with the sort of the diversity and the lovely variety of food. Didn't the audience used to bring in their own lunch as well on Light Lunch? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember that. It was a specific memory of an episode on Light Lunch? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that. It was a specific memory of an episode of Light Lunch where a lady in the audience, her lunch was Sweetie Kebabs. She put loads of sweets on her... That would have been me. I would have picked her. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You should meet them to start with. Good pick. I've never forgotten it. Yeah. Because you'd meet them all and they'd go, I got my cookies and I'd assume like, yeah, we do that every day. Has anyone don't know if anyone got anything else. Sweetie kebab. Geron, tell them!

Your dream main course, Dermot. Now, this is tough, lads, because I'm a fish guy and... A merman. You're a merman, yeah. And so it definitely is either going to be one of two fish, but then I sort of almost bottled it today on the way in and went, do I do rotisserie chicken? Okay.

Because I genuinely think there's not much better in the world than getting a rotisserie chicken. A good rotisserie chicken, which hard to find, I'm sure you'll agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, here, like in France, every village has got some guy that turns up in a van or something and this just opens. And in Italy, I know some great places for rotisserie chicken. But over here, yeah, tough. Yeah.

I mean, in Paris, which is my sort of main memories of rotisserie chicken, because my wife used to live in Paris in the Marais and literally like the shop opposite her had a rotisserie chicken thing outside with the potatoes in the bottom. Stop it. Just like they're tining and just... That's every night. It's dripping onto the potatoes. Just incredible.

Incredible. Nowadays doesn't count. It's not rotisserie chicken. It's not rotisserie chicken, is it? It's peri-peri. It has to be turning around on a rotisserie, doesn't it? It's just flat on the grill. I can't go past a place that does rotisserie chicken and not get rotisserie chicken.

And I've gone down a bit of rabbit hole of buying my own rotisserie oven. It's like hard. Well, you could. It's quite hard because they're big. And then you've got to justify it. What are we going to put it on? You can't use it for everything either. No, you just use it for chicken. No, surely you could do like lamb on it or you could do beef on it or something.

A watermelon? Difficult. You could do a watermelon on it. It's difficult to justify it in the house. You can't be like... Yeah. I mean, I've struggled with an air fryer. I'm not a big fan of an air fryer, I've got to be honest. Correct. Because I got one and then I sort of cooked in it and I went, it's sort of just like a microwave that kind of browns food. Yeah, it's an oven, it's a small oven.

It's not small either then. Yeah, they're too bulky for a work surface. I admire it, I appreciate it, but it doesn't factor, same as a microwave, it doesn't factor into my day to day. Because you're aiming at the rotisserie, you want the rotisserie oven, an air fry is not going to do anything for you. It's not going to do the job, is it? No.

And those potatoes that come with the little fish guy. Some of my early memories are going to Ireland and my early food memories. I did a show last year about, called Taste of Ireland. It was this kind of travel log, this largely sort of love letter to Ireland about food. One of the reviewers said, it's like it's paid for by the Irish tourist board. And then we looked at the credits and realized it's paid for by the Irish. But they were really hands off, they were lovely. Tourism Ireland were brilliant.

And they just said, look, do what you want, but as long as you call it the island of Ireland, because that's because we worked for the island, then knock yourself out. So I did one, I wanted to do one episode back in Wexford, which is where my family are from. And my earliest memories are us having a caravan when we went back there in the summer and my mum buying fresh mackerel and frying it in the caravan, stinking the whole caravan out. And so it would either be fresh mackerel or John Dory. And John Dory is probably my favourite adult fish, like when you sort of grow up and you

go to restaurants and you're out, you my favorite adult fish, like when you sort of grow up and you go to restaurants and you're allowed to kind of have what you want. But I can't go John Dory because I feel compelled to mackerel. Because also, I love to fish. I haven't fished for a while, but I'm not a great fisherman. I sort of do a little bit of sea fishing. And if you... Mackerel are basically like the kind of rock and roll fish,

because they like live fast, die young, and literally will literally bite anything. So if you hit a shoreline mackerel, you're on to a winner. And you feel like you're the best fisherman in the world, but they're not, they're just idiots. They're just like, what is it? I want to eat it. And they're so beautiful. They're like little sort of torpedoes. Do you like mackerel guys? Love mackerel. Absolutely love mackerel. They're like little torpedoes when you get them.

I've sort of done a little sashimi while I've been out there. So you take a soy sauce and an English mustard, just shake it up, and then you can do fillet the mackerel pretty quick. Yeah, it's unbelievable. So I think it has to be barbecued mackerel. And I've sort of got this down pat. I always find it quite hard to barbecue fish because it sticks. So I've almost got this down pat where I sort of do a paprika, smoked paprika butter with

it and then just sort of slather it in that and then it gets really, really charred. And it's either served- You're clicking it whole, right? Yeah. And then either serve that with either Jersey Royals, or I think think I know one of you is not a massive potato fan, but I love Jersey Royals. Or my father-in-law Roger does this outstanding potato salad where he just puts white onion and garlic in the bottom

and then builds up from there with parsley and potatoes and that and just a crispy green salad is just. I love it. I mean, I love the sound of that potato salad with it. Roger's potato salad. Yeah. With your barbecued mackerel. A lot of white pepper as well.

I love white pepper. The mackerel sounds amazing. Can I ask what barbecue you're using? Well, good question. I've got two. Okay. Because I've got like a Weber, which I love. Well, I don't know what's happened, but I'm off my game.

I've gone somehow, I can't retain heat and I don't know what's happened, but I'm off my game. I've gone somehow, I can't retain heat, and I don't know what I've done. I might just not be using enough charcoal, but I think I am. Yeah. Are you using as much as you used to? I think so. I don't know, I've got one of those kind of, so I can get it done quick. Yeah. I've got one of the big kind of chimney things, and then you pour it in. So maybe I'm just not putting enough in there, but it's killing me.

Yeah. I'm like, come on guys, what do you mean we're down to 150? I'm a 200 guy. Is it your ventilation? Do you need to clean out your vents? Maybe I need to clean up my vents. And then for my 50th, my wife got me an egg. What? A big green? A big green egg, yeah. Which I love, but I'm still finding my way with. I've got a Kamado Joe, which is a ceramic barbecue. And this is going to blow your mind.

One of the attachments you can buy for it is a rotisserie attachment. So you want to look into the big green egg situation. Cause with the Kamado Joe is called the Joe Tisserie and you slot it in between the lid. Yeah. Yeah. You slot it in between the lid and the main barbecue and put Coles in half the barbecue. And then what, what I've done in the past is you then spike it on, put it there and plug it in and it just turns it for you. But you only need the coals in half the thing.

So I've done lamb and chicken before actually, where I then wedge a foil tray of potatoes underneath so you can do that. I know you can do that with an egg. I know you do, but I just haven't used it enough yet. You gotta do it. You gotta make your own rotisserie. I know you like the sound of that rotisserie attachment, Dermot.

Do I ever? What, have you got one here? Because you're our favourite guest. That would be if Richard Bacon had collaborated with us on the format for this. That would be in there. Yeah, yeah. Then we'd give each guest a surprise present. How are you guys with whole fish? Are you good with whole fish? Yeah, I mean, mackerel, they're quite small bones in mackerel.

Yeah, pretty good. Pretty easy to fillet a mackerel. Yeah. And when it's cooked, it's quite, because you just go straight down the spines, you can go to it either way. I don't know if you know, I had a fish restaurant in Brighton for seven years. I didn't know this. And yeah, the sort of partnering one, it was like the most stressful seven years of my life. Literally.

I'm sorry. But I loved it. I loved it. And parts of it I absolutely loved. And it was so exciting. But I would literally wake up every day and check my phone for the weather in Brighton. Like we had five unbelievable years, really good years. And then we had two bad winters.

And the bad winters just destroyed your man. And it was a big building. I knew the game was up when I think we were snowing and the British ski team counted the reservation and I was like, well, if they're not, then we're really fucked up. But we sort of pride ourselves on being, and we won a couple of awards, I think, down the years for being sustainable. So we had a great supplier who we only ever bought, um, by catch from. So we never, I think in the, in the years we were going, we did, we did fish

and chips was quite a good sort of restaurant fish and chips, which was never, I don't think we ever used card. I think, yeah, I think it was always, and I love card, but you know, it was just, I think it was always whatever they call. It was a lot of fun. Like, you know, I look back at it sort of fondly, mostly, but I think it was always whatever they caught we'd put on. It was a lot of fun. I look back at it fondly mostly. It was quite stressful. Hospitality just seems so hard.

Especially at the moment, but it seems like it's such a difficult thing. I'm talking about opening a food court and these guys don't want to do it. You should do it. James wants to open a whole food court though. Do it. Yeah, but the three of us together. All two of us. Off menu food court.

The Court of St., off menu food court. The Court of St James is a great place. Would you rent a space basically or how would it work? He's not thought about this, Devin. Just wait for someone to come on the market. There's no logistics gone into this. And then we get a bunch of places we like and we set them all up in the food court, but they have like reduced versions of it, of their menu and stuff.

Just the greatest hits, often stuff we've talked about on off menu. Love. Some iconic stuff. And then we run that together, have the best time. How is it financially worth it for them slash us? People come in, spend the money. I mean, I don't know how I have to spell this out to you. Yeah, but it's the deal you're working with pre-existing businesses.

You know, and people aren't really eating out anymore, James. It's a hard life at the moment. I'm getting in on this. Yeah, I'm out anymore, James. It's a hard, it's a hard life at the moment being in this place. I'm a nun this. Yeah, James is getting a nun. Yeah, yeah. It's me opening the fish place. Well, actually, I genuinely think if we'd have a smaller place, Yeah.

there'd be a little hole in the wall that just done like, so why we'd still be in business. There you go. You could call it the small place, spelt like a fish. Yeah. Your dream side dish. Now you've got the, we're saying the potato salad and the green salad are part of the main. So you've got an extra side here to play with. You've got them banked. Yeah.

Wow. That's banked. Okay. So what classified, can I have roast history chicken as a side dish? No. Hang on. Oh yeah. In a small enough dish, I guess. They're going to be straight up there in the food court. He says no, but then there's... Actually, I bet we have let someone do something like that in the past.

Yeah. I mean, if the thing is it couldn't be, I don't think it could be a whole roast history chicken. I think it would have to be... A wing. A leg or a wing. Oh, it can do a wing. Yeah. Wings. You prefer wings to wing. Yeah. Wings. You prefer wings to legs?

Yeah. Is that the, what bit will you, if you're having a roast chicken at home, everyone's got their favorite bit, what are you going for first? Well, a turkey wing is genuinely my favorite bit of Christmas day now, because they're massive. No one else wants them. And I'd take them away like a coca spanula in the corner. I would literally, and I do most of the cooking at our house.

So if I'm, by the time the turkey gets to the table, I've sort of, I'm pretty full, because I've just had a turkey wing in it. Like turkey wings are unbelievable. So I would definitely say a wing. I also like brown meat. So, but I like, I don't like it when the skin's like flabby. So I like to kind of like, it needs to crisp it up. So either I'll turn it upside down or I'm still trying to work it out.

Some days you do a roast chicken and it's like, I've obviously nailed this. And some days like, why is it a bit too sweaty on the bottom? Do you know what I mean? So, cause I love the brown meat, but I love a crispy skin. You got to have crispy skin. Do you spatchcock? I don't. We don't usually ask guests such personal questions.

I'm glad you feel comfortable enough. Um, I normally, if I do, it's pre-bought. Right. Okay. So am I allowed chicken? I can have something else. You have chicken. You're allowed. So am I allowed chicken? I can have something else. You have chicken. You're allowed chicken if you want chicken, but if you want something else...

If you want a rotisserie chicken wing, you can have that as your side dish. Okay. I'll tell you what I love. I spend a lot of time in Italy, right? And I don't know how they do it, but like a parmesan, like aubergine parmesan, I have no idea how they make that as good as it is. I quite like aubergines. Yeah. Like I'd rarely cook with them or, you know, I've got nothing against them. But how they make that, you're eating it going, are you sure there's no meat in this? Yeah.

It is, I mean, that dish is probably in my top 10 of absolute go-tos. That is incredible. I think having watched videos of it being made, a lot of it is just frying the fuck out of the aubergines. I made it once, it was good, but I think I didn't fry it hard enough. I think it's just loads of olive oil and really frying it from what I can work out. But it is so delicious. I almost went with pasta as my main.

I always went like a Cappuccino Pepe or a Vongole. Vongole I love. Yeah, Hammy Hill chose that. Did he? Yeah. Yeah. Nice choice. When a conversation starts up and next time you bump into it.

Hahaha. Yeah. Yeah. Nice choice. When a conversation starts up and next time you bump into it. So the chicken wing, the rotisserie chicken wing or the aubergine parmesan or what you go for. Let's go aubergine parmesan. We've talked enough about rotisserie chicken. I feel like you've had enough ahead of time. Well, so I feel like, you know, you let me have my cake, I shouldn't eat it as well. Because if they basically have me chicken and fish as a main. So I feel good about this. Thank you. Dream drink. Can I have stages?

Sure. Yeah, throughout the meal. So let's go back to the first drink. Prawns. Prawns. Prawns is a good pint of Guinness. Guinness and prawns for me is just a marriage made in heaven. And then you got two pints next to each other.

Exactly, pint and pint. Yeah, yeah. And now I like beer as well, but I don't like anything. I don't know, I must have had a pint of beer. So I've been going to Italy now for a long time and there's a beer they've got down there in Puglia called Dreher. D-R-E-H-E-R. You can't get it here.

And it's 4.7 and it's peasants beer really. It's like some of my mates down there, I kind of like turn the nose up at it, but I just love it. And it's just the most amazing, fresh, ice cold beer with a, with, I love it with the fish and chicken or with a Vongole even or with pizza and stuff down there. But then if I'm going with the fish, I'm going white wine. And I really have just finished doing a wine course in Berry Brothers and Rudd. Oh yeah. Which is a cracking wine course. Really good. My wife got it for my birthday. Did you do the exam?

Carry on. No, that's the next stage. I think I will. So I just need to find time. I really enjoyed it. I'm doing a course. How's it going? Yeah. No, end of the month I'm doing it. How long will that take? I'm doing Leith's. It's three days. Yeah. Looking forward to it.

Yeah. Have you cleared it with it? Yeah, sorry. I'm doing a wine. He's got a lot of investor meetings with Foodcourt. Yeah. I'm up to my eyeballs in paper. You got to be here or not? He's got the DA on his back. He's having a hard time of it.

I can do my exams if I want to come on board at the Foodcourt. So yeah, so, and a lot of it was like stuff I thought I knew anyway. And it's kind of staged, you're not going to learn kind of integers and you know, it's not that detailed. But I got a lot of, in fact, there was every time we came in, there's this, Berry Brothers did this unbelievable cheese and kind of cured hams or sausage plate with bread. And it's half past six, about half past six, I'm quite hungry normally. And I'd sit down and I'd just cane it straight away. And then about 20 minutes in Victoria we go,

now just have a little bit of cheese just to balance that. Oh no, every week this happens. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I know there's a kind of like, people look down on that kind of New Zealand kind of quite punchy South Blanc, but I really quite like it. I also love kind of wines that feel like they've been lashed from the sea. So I love Muscadet, I love Albarino, I love that kind of West Coast of Europe wine, you

know? Like Etna or something like that. Yeah. I really love that kind of... Salinity? Are we using the word salinity? Yes, you can even taste the salt in it. I love Muscavay. You know, sort of Loire wines I really like. So yeah, one of those guys.

Right. So yeah, that's something for each course. You got your start. Is the beer going anywhere in particular? Or is that just a shout out? I've just handed it out to you guys so you can yeah table just experience it have a table bit yeah looking for your perfect place to call home lethbridge land is shaping the future of our city with incredible communities like crossings riverstone and watermark each neighborhood is designed with innovation passion and responsibility to enrich your life today and strengthen Lethbridge for tomorrow. From vibrant urban hubs to serene, coolly views,

there's a community waiting for you. Discover the lifestyle you've been dreaming of in a Lethbridge Land community. Visit lethbridgeland.ca and take the first step towards your new home today. Dream dessert. Well, this is hard because both of you are going to be going, it shouldn't be that hard. I love raspberries. Who doesn't?

My son. I love raspberries. I grew up in Colchester and one of my best mates is a strawberry farmer. And he does gym. He does a great line in raspberry as well. Cockney gym? No, Suffolk gym. And where we're from in Ireland, if you say to people, where you say to Irish people where you get strawberries from, they'll go Wexford. So I love summer berries, but raspberries are definitely my favorites. And when I was little, we used to go camping up in Norfolk in a place called Wells next

to the sea. I don't know if you guys have ever been up there. It's a beautiful part of the world, right? Slept in a car there. Were you gigging up there or? No, we weren't. We just, we just, we wanted to go on holiday there with our friends camping and we thought we'd stake it out first, but mistimed our journey. We were a bit late. We were like late teens. We was like, oh, this mistimed our journey. It was a bit late, we were like late teens, and we were like, fuck, let's just sleep in the car.

So we did that, got moved on in the morning by a copper. Love that. Not many people stake out in Norfolk, because when you go in there, you are going there. Yeah, yeah, but we were at that age, Matthew had just passed his driving test, we were driving everywhere looking for any excuse to drive. So we were like, great, let's drive there just to see if like we want to, you know, before we go there for this holiday.

So we just wanted an excuse to do it. You're so right, aren't you? I remember when I passed my test, my sister was studying in Sheffield and it'd be that end of term. I'm like, I'm going to pick her up. Of course I will. Yeah, I'll drive to Sheffield. Now you'd be like, what?

Yeah. No. I've got to drive to Sheffield. And it'd be like, I'm going to stop a little chef. I gave up sugar that day. I remember I was going up to seeffield and it was like, I'm going to stop at Little Sheff. I gave up sugar that day. I remember I was going up to see my sister, pick her up and stopped at Little Sheff and someone said, how do you want your coffee? And I weirdly had a coffee, sugar in my coffee today, I feel a little bit.

But on the way up I was like, I'm not going to have any sugar. I'll take the pancake. That's a grown up moment. I'm driving, I'm in Little Sheff. Oh man, driving the first time when you're on your own is amazing, isn't it? That's a grown up moment. It is a grown up moment. I'm driving, I'm in Little Chef. The first time when you're on your own is amazing, isn't it? It's nice to test. Just driving, literally looking at other drivers going, I'm doing it too.

And you, look, we're on the same road. With Norfolk, so we used to go up there, we used to camp, me and my mum and dad and my sister. And there used to be a restaurant that I call Fryer Tucks. And I can't remember too much about Fryer Tucks other than the fact it did a Knickerbocker Glory. And a Knickerbocker Glory, you get to a certain age and it is sort of frowned upon to order a Knickerbocker Glory as a man, I think. Like you do order a Knickerbocker Glory and I think people's respect goes down around the table. As in, you kind of get this kind of indulged look where you go, oh, you're right, you're revisiting your youth or something.

But it's not a grown-up dessert. Yeah. There's a place in, and you can't find a good knick-and-mocker, but there's a place in, thanks baby, there's a place in a town in London called 54 German Street. And it's the Fortnum & Mason's restaurant, it's a very lovely restaurant, I've only been a few times, but it's really nice.

But what they do have is this unbelievable old school dessert menu. There's another place in North London. Someone that's been on the show must have talked about before called Oslo Court. I don't know if you know. No, I'm not sure. Oslo Court was set up as an apartment block.

And... I think I know the place you're talking about. Right, it's around the corner from Lorde's. So quite often, if you go to the Cricket, it's a nice place to go. But it's very huge neighborhood restaurant. And they've also got this incredible dessert trolley with this guy who's in charge of the dessert trolley. So I've been there before with my mate Stokzy. And does it look super 70s looking?

Oh, yeah. Everything's peach. Yeah. And it's been running the same family forever. And it's in this apartment block. And you get Melbourne toast when you go in straight away. Like the tablecloths, the peach, the curtains of peach, carpet, I think is peach-esque. But the food is absolutely fantastic.

But it's quite old school food as well. So it'd be like a croque-zard-jac or something like that, or a crab larochelle. So it's just marvelous kind of quite rich foods, really good. I was there last time I was there, walked in and there's a concierge thing before. So you walk, so you go to the left, you go to all the apartments, you go to the right and you go to the restaurant. And there was this old lovely, kind looking lady who was at reception.

It was just talking to the concierge and I was walking in and she saw me and went, excuse me, are you, are you on television? And I said yes and she went, oh, awful show, awful. I was like, I'm sorry, what? Oh, terrible, terrible program, awful. I didn't stop to ask which one. No, no. I sat down. And you find yourself clarifying. And I was quite traumatized. And my mates came in and went, did you meet that old woman outside?

And they went, yeah. I said, what did she say to you? I said, what, did she ask what we did? I said, what did you ask? What did you say? And they said, we work in television. And she said to them, there's nothing on television. It's all off.

And I was like, what? She's so angry. Well, she hates all television. Yeah, it's good to know. That makes you feel better. Yeah, she made me feel slightly better. She hates all television. It makes you feel better. It made me feel slightly better. So she hates all your programs. All of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get her to vote on which one. I think she's consistent. But they do. I've had a knickerbocker glory there. So a knickerbocker glory is just this great fun dessert. I think if it's on, you so rarely see it. If it's on the menu, you've got to go for it.

And I was going to say eat and mess, and I love eating mess, but you can get eating mess all the time, you can make it so easily. It's like, shit, people are coming around, have we got raspberries, some meringue nests, bit of ice cream or cream or whatever, and some berries and some mint. Smash it all up, it's done, it's quite easy. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of a pavlova or a baked Alaska as well. Anything that involves that kind of, yeah, right. If baked Alaska's on the menu, it's getting ordered.

100%. That's the rule. It's getting ordered. A hundred percent. It's the rule. A hundred percent. We went out for lunch with my birthday last week and went out for lunch with my in-laws and my mum and my wife and at the Woolsey. James, we had lunch the day after. James. Yeah.

He wasn't invited to the... We had lunch the day after. Yeah, I had a birthday lunch with him. Yeah, but there was a banana split on the dessert and my father-in-law got the banana split and I don't think I've ever seen him happier because it was fucking massive. Was it? It was gigantic. I was going to say, because if you're in a restaurant and you're selling a banana split,

especially a restaurant like The Walls, it's got to be the real deal, isn't it? You can hide making a banana split. It's like banana, ice cream, chocolate sauce. So you know it's got to be, if it's going to be in a restaurant like that, it's got to be amazing. It made an impact when it arrived at the table. Did it? Yeah, he was absolutely delighted. What's your favorite dessert guys?

I was like, I was into mine. So I was like every now and again, if you get a crepes gisette, for example, I'm like, when did you ever have a crepes gisette? Sure, delicious. I'm a choccy boy, but I had a fantastic apple tart tartan recently. Oh yeah. Really good. But now I'll normally go, if there's a chocolate thing on the menu, I'm going chocolate based.

But tart tartan. I mean, now you've put baked Alaska in my head. There's a place in Leeds called Ox Club. Ox Club do a different baked Alaska pretty much, or every time I've been or sent friends there, there's always a different flavor baked Alaska on there. So it says always baked Alaska, but it's always different each time, different ice cream, different, and it's always 10 out of 10. So that's, you put that in my head. That's the dessert I would like right now.

Good dessert menus. Fantastic. My mom and dad live in, they're from Wexford, right in Ireland and they live about three or four kilometers from the coast. And there's a restaurant down there called Mary Barry's. Mary Barry's is just an institution in Wexford, sort of anywhere in southern Ireland. So, around the corner from Big Fish Port, so you've got great fish there. But then they'll just like, their special will be like,

oh, it's turkey and ham roast. Well, okay. Well, I was going to go for the place, but yeah. I can have a little turkey. And then, but their dessert menu, like they'll come up and go, like dessert menu is everything you need, it's all the Knickerbocker glory.

And then every now and again, they'll come up and go, the specialist is a Rollo cheesecake. And you're like, who makes a Rollo cheesecake? This is incredible. When's the last time you had the Knickerbocker glory? Every years ago. Even the name is fun, isn't it? Knickerbocker glory?

Yeah, really good. I think probably when I was a kid, and like, even then, I probably still read more stories that reference Nicobocca Glories than I've actually had Nicobocca Glories. Yeah, I think that's a universal truth. I think also, I love the kind of, it takes an effort and it takes a long spoon. It's like you're like an anteater at the end of it, aren't you? On the Nicobocca Glories. We just used to have one of those spoons in our house and I don't know where it came from

and what we had. So true, I've got one. It's a long spoon. One long spoon. When did we use this? Yeah. When did we find the spoon? I need to start making my son Knickerbocker.

He's four. I think he'd really appreciate Knickerbocker. He loves ice cream. I met your son at Radio 2. He was romping about. Casper, yeah. Like he owned the place. It was brilliant.

I think Claudi was on air and he just went into the studio. He's obsessed with Claudia. It's largely it. If Claudia's around, they've got this mutual loving. She's bought like half his clothes are basically from Claudia Winkley. Seriously, he's got a jacket. Wearing a jacket with his name on the back. That's from Claudia.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. I was going to ask if you're having a wine with dessert or a cocktail to finish off the menu. I like dessert wine, but I never ever order it. Like whenever I have it, I quite like it. But it's always quite, I always find it quite, it's so sweet. And I never, like a little, I like it digestive, but I'm, I'd probably just have coffee if

I'm honest. Have a coffee. Yeah. No sugar. No sugar. You go that? No sugar sugar with the Knickerbocker Glaw. Sweet enough. No sugar, you go that. No Shuggy Shugs with the Knickerbocker Glaw. Yeah, yeah. Sweet enough.

Get out of the hill with that. But I do like a little something. I did a show a couple of years ago with Gordon, well about 10 years ago, I have Gordon Buchanan who you should get on here. Gordon's amazing, like wildlife cameraman. Just the nicest guy you're ever going to meet. We haven't had many wildlife cameramen on the podcast yet. I'd say yeah.

You can't, seriously. Almost none. He's such a lovely guy and he's so sort of well-versed and well-traveled I haven't had many wildlife cameramen on the podcast yet. I'd say yeah. You should get on, seriously. Almost none. He's such a lovely guy and he's so sort of well versed and well traveled and has eaten so much different food everywhere, you know. Not the wildlife though, right? Oh, I know.

That's not his vibe. So he's supplemented in cut. And cut. And Gordon had a show about 10 years ago called, I think it was called Wild Weekends or something and basically it was in the UK. And it was a year I wasn't doing X Factor. And he called me up and said, listen, is there any wildlife you'd want to see? And I love the outdoors, I love camping, I love all that stuff.

You don't really get a chance to do that often. And I said, well, I'd love to do is swim, I'd love to see Baskin Sharks or whales somewhere within the UK. And he went great. Leave it with me. So we went up to sky and for like three, four days and we just hit the sweet spot. The weather was amazing. We saw first day we saw like golden eagles and otters and seals and all of this.

And then we camped out on rum. That was the great number. We were kayaking and we caught mackerel and the mackerel are like tuna. They were fucking massive. And then we camped out that night on rum. There's only 30 people or something live on rum. So that's the next island along. And, you know, got bitten by midges and all this.

But me and Gordon, cameraman, sailman of a night, caught the mackerel. Gordon cooked up this kind of couscous. I'm now, I'm not the world's biggest couscous fan, but it was kind of like, you know, a bit of stock in it. It was really lovely. Fresh mackerel. And then he opened up a bottle of Talisker, whiskey.

And I really like whiskey, but I don't tend to drink an awful lot of it. And I think we're all sort of kind of brought up with it being, you know, terrible hangovers and sort of stuff. And actually he went, no, no, we don't, we have like, you're drinking like coffee. You have like two a night, just afterwards, you know, as a digestive really, or just at the end of the food. And then we just sort of send you on your way to bed. And it's totally changed how I looked at whiskey. So now I really enjoy it, but I'll have, I'll never have more than two. And I'll just have one, just like sometimes just, you know, the end of an evening or something

just to kind of, kind of mellow it all away. It's really lovely. And we know over the course of like three days, the four of us drank this bottle, but it was just, you know, it wasn't drunk once. Yeah. It's just really lovely. We can give you a little whiskey at the end of the day. Oh, thank you. Send you to bed. Yeah, send you to bed. I'll read your menu back to you now. Yes, please. See how you feel about it. You would like Perrier water. You would like... I mean, I wasn't... Sparkling's fine. I don't mind where it's from. No, you got Perrier. Oh, great. You got Perrier. With some lime. You would like soda bread and white bread. You would like a pint of Norwegian prawns with white bread, mayo, lemon, side salad. Main course, barbecued mackerel with smoked paprika butter.

I forget the Guinness. Oh yeah, there's a pint of Guinness with that starter actually. Thank you for picking me up on that. Barbecued mackerel with smoked paprika butter, Roger's potato salad, crispy green salad and wine. What was the wine again? Anything West Coast European. What shall I have? Well you said Lourdes. Muscadet. Yeah, Muscadet.

Aubergine parmigiana for your side. Drink. Oh yeah, that's where Benito's written all the drinks there. Nice little table beer. The Dreya. Yeah, Dreya. Gorgeous. Oh yeah. I think the Dreya beer is your dream drink and those other drinks with those courses. And there's a Knickerbocker Glory from Oslo Court and a coffee, no sugar and some whiskey that's engineered by me.

Oh yeah, that's lovely. That's pretty great. Thanks guys. That sounds very tasty, Dermot. I think I most want to try the prawns because I haven't had a pint of Norwegian prawns and if they're so good it makes you not want another prawn again from anywhere else. 100%. Yeah, I've got to try those prawns, baby.

Well, Dermot, thank you so much for coming on. Is there any X Factor contestant you wish was sharing this meal with? That's a nice question. One X Factor contestant. Can I have a judge or a contestant? You seriously want one of the judges? Yeah. Oh yeah.

Shersie. Shersie's the world of fun. Yeah. Yeah. You want a good drinking buddy. Nicole is pretty much as great as they can. So we did judge's houses once and we ended up in Nice and me and her got there the night before.

I mean, staying in this like massive house and we had the chef and so the chef had cooked this kind of, you know, it's the kind of job isn't it, traveling chef around Europe in the summer quite often. He was this really sweet guy and you know, I mean I was kind of just tagging along, but then obviously he said, what do you want to eat Nicole? And they picked this menu and blah, blah, blah. And then towards the end of the night she said, you don't have any pork do you? And the guy, this color drained from this guy's face because you don't have any pork. He was like, you know, obviously serving you know, serving Nicole Scherzing was stunning and beautiful, funny

and lovely and all this sort of stuff. And he went, Oh God, no, let me see what I can get. And he came back with this kind of bottle and he poured a glass of it and she's dried it. She went, Oh my God, that's lovely. And he left it and it was cooking sherry. So we then proceeded to get shit faced on cooking sherry. And then she was like, we've got to find shitfaced on cooking Sherry. And then she was like, we've got to find something else. So by this time this guy's gone home. So we are opening every cupboard in this house. So it's like an Airbnb, massive Airbnb.

So we're just like, she's like, I found some beer. She's just an absolute animal. And then, so, you know, we have this great night and there's like four or five of us staying there. We all go to bed. I wake up in the morning feeling, oh God, I'm going to go down and have a swim like in the sea and feel a lot better. I've swum in the sea.

And I get up and I look out my window and she's literally just going on like a 10 mile run. I'm like, I hate you, how do you do this? Get this. Yeah, so we're Jersey. She's there. She's there for the whole meal. And then if it's the contestant,

then I mean, let's go with Ryland. I mean, you know, that guy's going to win the party. Yeah, no brainer. Wherever he goes. Thank you so guy's going to ruin the party. Yeah, no brainer. Wherever he goes. Thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant, Dermot. Thanks guys, loved it. There we are. What a wonderful episode with Dermot.

That was a delicious menu. Nice man. A wonderful man and he didn't choose Cheerios. So we didn't have to kick old Cheerio Leary out of the Dream Restaurant. Tick tick tick tick tick tick boom. Silence is Golden is on you and Dave weekly on Mondays and all episodes are available to stream for free on you now. Yeah watch all of that watch all of that watch all of that I am on tour in New Zealand and Australia in June. Very exciting. I'll miss you.

I'll miss you too, buddy. EdGamble.co.uk for tickets. Buy some tickets, come and see me in all the different places in New Zealand and Australia. Yeah, 100%. 100%. But I just want you to know that he thinks about you all the time. Yeah. All of you listeners and you all mean a lot to him and you're always in his heart.

He holds you very always in his heart. He holds you very close to his soul. Goodbye. Goodbye. Hello there off-menu listeners. It's me, Amy Gleddale, and you might remember me from my episode of off-menu when I chose to have seaweed on mash and I'll be taking no further questions. And my name is Ian Smith and you may remember me from the one line of dialogue I had in a non-broadcast Channel 4 pilot. Maybe

you're in the studio audience at the time. Who can forget? But that's not what we're here to talk about. No, Northern News, our podcast, is coming back for Series 4. And don't worry, it's not a boring news podcast. No way. We're two Northerners living in London and every week we catch up on the weirdest, most bizarre local news from up north. Things like... Woman in tears after spotting spitting image of dead dog in bathmat. Pure evil blackbird named Derek terrorising Yorkshire village and attacking children.

And we're joined by special correspondents every week like your one and only Ed Gamble who you might have heard of. You'll remember him from this podcast, the one you're listening to now. Yeah. He hosts it. Yeah. Co-host. He was on my episode of Off Menu. Was he? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he was in the non-broadcast channel 4 pilot I did as well. Oh he will have been. He's a nice guy. Yeah. So that's Northern News starting next Thursday, the 1st of May and then every Thursday after that. Join us.